Government freezes most pay but not hiring

During the 2010 midterm elections, congressional Republicans pledged to freeze "both government pay and government hiring."

Government pay has indeed been frozen for the past two years, in the sense that annual, across-the-board adjustments to compensation tables have not been increased. On Dec. 22, 2010, President Barack Obama signed legislation to prohibit pay increases (technically, statutory pay adjustments) for most federal civilian employees. This legislation was passed by Congress, after the GOP had won the majority in the election but while the lame-duck Democratic Congress was still in office. Obama also issued a memorandum the same day that curbed pay increases for federal civilian employees not directly covered by the legislation, saying that agencies should forgo increases to pay schedules and rates set by administrative discretion.

This doesn't mean that no federal employees got raises. They could still be promoted to a higher-paying job, and they could also receive what are known as "within-step increases.” These are merit-based increases that certain employees -- such as those with sufficient tenure -- can receive. The legislation did not change the policy for "step” salary bumps.

Meanwhile, budget cutbacks did force some agencies to limit taking on new employees, but federal hiring was never specifically frozen.

Agencies that could afford it were free to hire -- and many agencies did hire people. Official statistics show that executive branch agencies did hire over 108,000 full-time, non-seasonal, permanent employees in fiscal year 2011 and another 59,000 in the first three quarters of fiscal 2012. Most commonly, agencies hired replacements for departing employees, said John M. Palguta, vice president for policy at the Partnership for Public Service, a group that advocates for the civil service. Such hires wouldn't increase the size of the federal workforce, but they do count as "hiring.”

The pay freeze was an Obama decision, since he made the recommendation and since Congress could have overridden his decision but did not. Still, it's reasonable for the GOP to "claim credit for successfully pressuring the President to freeze pay." Since the pay freeze was largely implemented but the hiring freeze was not, we rate this promise a Compromise.